Research Literature

• Kathleen Cotton

• Gates Foundation

• Small Schools Project

• Aspen Institute

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New Small Learning Communities: Findings From Recent Literature

Kathleen Cotton was a Research Associate in the School Improvement Program at the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory . She wrote what is described as a "ground breaking" study of small schools in 1996. These quotes are taken directly from her 2001 review of the literature and are grouped by theme:  Outcomes ; Size ; Curriculum ; Grouping

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Outcomes
Wasley, et al. (2000) ... provide more detail: We believe…that smaller school size can facilitate leaders' abilities to lead a school to improved performance and teachers' abilities to build student skill and knowledge in important ways….It is important to avoid seeing small schools as the sole solution to all that ails education. Rather, we would suggest that it is a key ingredient in a comprehensive plan to improve education. Researchers who have studied small schools have stressed that reducing school size alone does not necessarily lead to improved student outcomes. Instead, they have concluded that school size should be seen as having an indirect effect on student learning…school size acts as a facilitating factor for other desirable practices. In other words, school characteristics that tend to promote increased student learning--such as collegiality among teachers, personalized teacher-student relationships, and less differentiation of instruction by ability--are simply easier to implement in small schools. (pp. 5-6)


The outcomes typically produced by SLCs, in contrast to large schools, include:

1. Higher achievement
2. Reduction of the negative effects of poverty on achievement 
3. Increased student affiliation with their school community 
4. Greater safety and order 
5. Much less truancy and many fewer dropouts 
6. Similar college entrance exam scores, acceptance rates, GPAs, and completion 
7. Higher levels of extracurricular participation in traditional small schools; role of extracurricular participation differs across SLCs 
8. Higher levels of parent and community involvement and greater satisfaction 
9. More positive teacher attitudes and satisfaction 
10. Comparable core curricula 
11. Lower costs per student graduated (p. 50)

In the popular press, articles informing readers about the impressive benefits of small schools continue to be written and read, but for many people in and outside the education profession, this is old news. Research conducted over the past 15 years has convincingly demonstrated that small schools are superior to large ones on many measures and equal to them on the rest (Raywid, 1996; Cotton 1996). Indeed, noted small school researcher Mary Anne Raywid (1999) has written that the superiority of small schools has been established "with a clarity and at a level of confidence rare in the annals of education research" These findings, together with strong evidence that smaller schools can narrow the achievement gap between white/middle class/affluent students and ethnic minority and poor students has led to the creation of hundreds of small schools in large cities around the U.S., including Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle and others. (p. 1)

The fact that these mostly poor, mostly ethnic minority children have notably higher achievement in small learning environments is extremely encouraging to those who have previously searched in vain for an educational approach that could narrow the "achievement gap" between these students and their white and higher-SES peers. And the effect is not only well documented, but also sizeable--"remarkably strong and consistent from state to state," (p. 14) top

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Size
Looking at size, for example, many of the writers whose work I consulted offer opinions about the proper size for a small high school. A few put the maximum at 500 students, but most assert that an upward limit of 400 is best. Others note that the size of the most successful small urban high schools is smaller still, with enrollments closer to 200 than 400. (p. 7)

Barriers and Pitfalls:  Still too large . Wasley and Lear are among the growing chorus of experts who argue that "so-called small schools aren't small enough"; that the optimal size for a small school is "closer to 200 than to 400 students". And once schools get over 400 students, they argue, they begin to lose their personalization and focus. Gregory (2000) concurs: A size of 400 or 500 makes sense only if one's intent is to conduct business as usual, a routine of textbook-dominated classes that are designed to dispense a curriculum that emphasizes the transmission of information from the old to the young via group instruction delivered within the confines of the school building. (p. 43) top

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Curriculum
An argument sometimes advanced against small schools is that their curriculum is inferior to that of large schools. Critics declare that more students means more staff and a greater variety of curricular offerings, which in turn will meet individual student needs and provide them better preparation for college or other postsecondary plans. While that line of thinking seems reasonable enough, the research findings do not bear it out. For one thing, according to Roellke's 1996 research summary on curriculum adequacy and quality, "researchers have found…that core curricular offerings in small high school settings overall are well aligned with national goals." (p. 18)

Haller, et al. (1990), having made a similar discovery, challenge the argument for school consolidation on grounds of curriculum adequacy. "Perhaps we are obtuse," they write, "but why the state should have an overriding interest in consolidating schools so that a few students are able to study calculus, physics, and a fourth year of German--to say nothing of rock poetry--eludes us." (p. 18)

Instead of being a deficit, the inability of small schools to differentiate students by offering a diverse curriculum seems to be an advantage. It forces small schools to teach a core academic curriculum in heterogeneous classes--and this factor is associated with a higher and more equitable level of achievement among students." (p. 19) top

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Grouping, etc.
Many researchers, external service providers and experienced small-school practitioners tell us that the positive achievement and very positive equity results they see are due largely to the fact that the schools with which they are involved do not practice academic tracking. For a long time researchers have been reporting that minority and poor young people are overrepresented in low tracks in conventional large high schools. They have also found that the learning content and methods offered to lowtrack classes are typically far less stimulating to students than those of higher-track classes. Researchers and practitioners have also known for many years that, ordinarily, once placed in a given track, a student's fate is sealed: the system is not sensitive to changes in students' intellectual development and does not review placements for appropriateness. Probably for the foregoing reasons, research has been reporting for decades that placement in a low or "average" track has a negative impact on students' academic performance and self-concepts--and that tracking confers few benefits even for those in high tracks. .... Small school practitioners, however, have found that heterogeneous groups of students--those that large high schools do not seem to be able to serve effectively--can be accommodated and educated productively in small learning environments. After spending considerable time "in the trenches," Mohr observes that, "Many effective small schools are organized in heterogeneous groupings within which individual needs are met….Teachers can begin to learn how to meet multiple needs of students with multiple abilities through the use of groups, anecdotal evaluations, and individual conferences. This means knowing students in a way that is much more thorough and much more personal than is possible in large high schools…." (2000, 150)(pp. 29-30)

Indeed, Howley, Strange and Bickel (2000) write that " providing smaller schools in very affluent communities could well prove to be counterproductive in terms of achievement" (p. 1)

Nearly every report consulted in preparation for this paper mentions the key role of parents in these small school communities. Among the characteristics of successful SLCs with which the Washington Small Schools Project works, is that "they view parents as critical allies, and find significant ways to include them in the life of the school community" (p. 32) top

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Small Schools Project  

This project provides support and assistance to K-12 schools in Washington State and nationally that have received reinvention grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Project is part of the College of Education at the University of Washington

Successful small schools provide rigorous and relevant learning experiences for every student. In small schools, students with diverse abilities and needs learn together in heterogeneous classes. In order to ensure each student''s success, teachers must create a more personalized class environment and adapt their classroom practice to meet the needs of diverse learners. top

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Gates Foundation

Rethinking High School - a report that examines five charter schools, amongst the points made in this report were the importance of students self-selecting to be in the small schools, the schools had strong and rigorous curricula with higher level coursework (AP, honors, college level, etc.) available to all students. If you have trouble getting the report to download, you can start here on the Gates Foundation website.

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Aspen Institute

The Education and Society Program of the Aspen Institute provides a forum and leadership development for education leaders—government officials, researchers, funders, school and college administrators and practitioners—to engage in focused discussions regarding their efforts to improve student achievement, and to consider how public policies affect their progress. Past Aspen workshops have contributed to the movement for academic standards, reconsideration of the democratic purposes of schooling, as well as exploration of the relationship of education to the community and the economy. Since 1999, the Program’s primary focus has been on the need to transform America’s high schools, particularly those in urban centers serving large numbers of students of color. A 2002 Aspen report concluded that high schools are “pathways to nowhere” for many students, and that we are experiencing a crisis that “can’t be solved simply by trying to push a larger number of students through the same pipeline that now works for only a portion of them.”

The statements below are taken from several of the Institute's recent publications.

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Transforming the American High School
To help all students reach common, high standards, the one-size-fits-all approach of today’s high school must yield to a system that presumes students will learn through different pedagogies, institutional arrangements, and amounts of time.The current education system, including high schools, provides students with a constant amount of time and a single approach for learning—and produces unacceptably large variations in student performance.The only way to get all students up to common, high performance standards is to flip this formulation on its head.We must provide students with multiple learning options and pathways and varied lengths of time to complete high school and gain the skills necessary to enter postsecondary education without remediation. emphasis added(p. 6)


High schools that make a difference in young people’s lives are connected to their communities—to employers, postsecondary institutions, and community- based organizations—and learning takes place in the context of the entire community, not just the school.A generation of resiliency studies that look at young people who have “beaten the odds,” as well as emerging research on small schools and program evaluations on prevention of risk behaviors such as teen pregnancy, substance abuse, youth violence, and dropping out of school, all point to a core set of essential supports and opportunities that motivate young people to work hard, achieve at high levels, and develop the knowledge, skills, and orientations necessary for later success... (p. 5)

The Five Cs: Essential Supports and Opportunities
Jobs for the Future’s From the Margins to the Mainstream initiative has codified the essential supports and opportunities young people need in order to become productive adults as the Five Cs :

1. Caring relationships that help young people build an attachment to he learning environment and provide them with the support they need to overcome obstacles;
2. Cognitive challenges that engage young people intellectually and help them to develop the competencies they will need for postsecondary success;
3. Culture of support for effort that pushes young people to do their best work;
4. Community membership and voice in a group young people feel is worth belonging to; and
5. Connections to high-quality postsecondary learning and career opportunities through an expanding network of adults. (p.5)

Growing empirical evidence suggests that small high schools generally have higher achievement levels, higher graduation and lower dropout rates, and are
safer than larger high schools (see Raywid 1996; Gladden 1998; Lee 2000).2 Further, the benefits of small size are greatest for students in schools with high
minority and/or low-income enrollments (Lee and Smith 1997), particularly in urban communities. Small size is not a silver bullet, but it can be an important
lever for bringing about a related set of changes that together produce significant results.  (pp. 5-6) top

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Review of Selected High School Reform Strategies
In regards to equity, Gladden cites consistent findings that smaller school size predicts higher academic achievement among minority and low-income students.  Smaller school size also appears to have the potential to reduce achievement gaps between students of different racial or socioeconomic backgrounds. Lee and Smith (1997) find that students learn more in smaller schools (high schools ranging from 600-900 students), that learning is more equitably distributed in smaller schools, and that the effects of reduced school size on learning are strongest in schools with higher proportions of minority and low SES students. (p. 6) top

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